Archer Live Review: The T-Shirt Cannon, The Tentacle Porn, And Much More

Packed with allusions, self-referential callbacks, rapid-fire banter and outlandish and irreverent characters, FX's Archer inspires a fervent fandom.-- and many of them were lined up outside New York's Irving Plaza a full two and a half hours before last Saturday's live show. Luckily for all of us, even with the sold-out crowd there wasn't really a bad seat in the house. Especially when it came to the t-shirt cannon. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

To kick off Season 4 of the espionage-centered comedy cartoon series and celebrate the release of Season 3's DVD, the cast and producers of Archer came together to perform scenes from the show, share clips, play games and answer questions. And though the event was far from being a finely tuned machine, it was one of the greatest live shows I've ever experienced. Yes, there were issues with the mics glitching, and some bits got clunky or ran long. But with a panel that included executive producer Matt Thompson, H. Jon Benjamin (Sterling Archer), Jessica Walter (Mallory Archer), Aisha Tyler (Lana Kane), Chris Parnell (Cyril Figgis), Amber Nash (Pam Poovey), and Lucky Yates (Doctor Krieger), who exchanged barbs and one-liners at a dizzying pace, it is easy to forget the show's snags.

It was a very special night. For one, Archer Live! marked one of the few occasions the cast was in the same room, outside of the occasional Comic Con panel. Despite their incredible onscreen chemistry, the voice cast of Archer typically records their lines solo, often from all over the country. Nash explained each actor offers several different reads on each line, and then the show's editors masterfully lace them together to create the electric and zinging pace that Adam Reed and Thompson developed working on 11-minute episodes of Sealab 2021 for Adult Swim.